SEO Tips for Consultants Promoting Law Firms

I've been a member of this forum since 2008, but I haven't been around in awhile and I'd like to post a thread that would help members who are SEO consultants for law firms or other local businesses. I'm gearing this article to "law firms", because that's been my niche for the past five years, but you could use these tips for any local business. Please feel free to ask any questions that you may have. I have ranked for some very competitive keywords, and I'd love to help those who are just getting started. Please also feel free to use any of my materials, tips and suggestions for your own agency. These tips can help you close more deals.

Let's get started!

Local SEO for Law Firms: Questions and Answers

If you, as a law firm, regularly receive customers at your location, then you've probably been told that you need to work on your local SEO. However, a large amount of law firms don't really have a clue about what local law firm SEO is and what it can do for them. In reality, it's quite easy to understand the concepts behind it and integrate it with the rest of your attorney SEO practices. Here are some of the most common questions asked by business owners about local SEO and the answers to them:

What kind of law firms need to use local SEO?

The simple answer would be: if your business has a physical address where your customers can go to, then you will need to do some local law firm SEO.

What are the differences between regular SEO and local SEO for lawyers?

All of the basic considerations that apply to a regular or global SEO will also apply to local SEO. So you would still need to have high quality unique content on your site, a good amount of links from reputable sources, etc. But there are also some elements that will be unique to local law firm SEO.

Pro Tip: Check out https://www.ubl.org/index.aspx for help getting citations

The most important one is that you would need to create a local profile on Google. When someone in your city searches for a keyword that is related to your business, your listing will show up in search results. Another thing that you will need to work on is to get citations. The term citation actually refers to any web page that shows your law firm's contact information (name, address and phone number) on the same page, in a way that is consistent with what you've put on your local listing.

Pro Tip: See this page for help on setting up your G+ Local profile: http://www.google.com/+/business/

For better results, you should ensure that your citations show your business contact information in the exact same way as your listing. For example, if your law firm's name is ABC Corporation in your listing, avoid using the abbreviated form ABC Corp. in your citations.

What are the most important things to do which will boost local law firm SEO rankings?

We all know that Google sometimes makes changes to their algorithm, but so far, the factors that have stayed consistent when ranking local law firm’s are the amount of citations, the amount of reviews (Google Places has a lot of weight here, but other sites like Yelp also seem to count) and the number of positive reviews versus negative ones.

Steal this: Good list of citations http://searchengineland.com/top-50-citation-sources-for-uk-us-local-businesses-104938

It was observed that businesses which have very high amounts of positive reviews can perform very well in local search results even if they don't have that many citations. Therefore, encouraging customers who were happy with your business to leave you a good review on Google Places can be extremely beneficial.

How Can I Get More Reviews for My Law Firm?

This can be done simply by letting your customers know that they can leave a review for your business on your Google Places profile. You can place the logos of websites where people can review your business in a place where they can see it while they're at your location. It is also possible to put a statement like: “How satisfied were you with our service? Leave us your comments at [insert your Google Places link]! You should encourage your customers to review your business whenever you communicate with them, especially after a sale. Therefore, including your Google Places link in emailed sales confirmations or follow up marketing messages can get you a few more reviews.

Do this: Nice article on getting more reviews from Google http://searchengineland.com/5-tips-to-get-more-online-customer-reviews-92311

One thing NOT to do, however, is to use services that sell reviews. There are several red flags which will alert Google to possibly fake reviews, such as a new business receiving dozens of reviews from day one, reviews left by accounts that are way too far from your location, Google accounts that seem to be used exclusively to review businesses in a certain area, etc. Even if Google may not notice it right away, they might in the future and you risk getting penalized.

Should an attorney conduct their law firm's SEO by themselves, or is hiring outside help necessary?

There isn't really a definite answer to this, as it will depend on numerous factors. What budget can you allocate to your SEO efforts? How much time are you prepared to invest in doing local law firm SEO? How comfortable are you with keeping up to date with any changes to the way Google operates or new opportunities to boost your site's ranking?

Law Firm SEO is a very complex and technical task, therefore you can do it yourself or put one of your employees in charge of it. But a dedicated SEO agency can do the same tasks faster and with more accuracy. Using an outside agency will require you to spend money, but for some it may be well worth the expense.

Resources for a law firm SEO campaign:
http://circleoflegaltrust.com/law-firm-seo-mistakes/
http://www.hgexperts.com/article.asp?id=5452
https://twitter.com/legalgeek
http://goblackfin.com/kick-butt/seo/
http://www.toprankblog.com/2010/05/local-search-tips/
http://lawfirmmarketing.net/2013/01/2013-playbook/
http://blog.innovation-al.com/local-seo-tips-to-get-your-business-found
http://www.seobook.com/darren-shaw-whitespark-local-seo
http://foxxr.com/local-seo-tips/
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/5-often-overlooked-local-seo-tips/55894/
http://searchengineland.com/13-semantic-markup-tips-for-2013-a-local-seo-checklist-143708